Dubliner in Japan

Opinion pieces, travel articles, places and people; lots of poetry; commentary on current events and history and whatever else shows up on the radar. Articles have been numbered (since Sept. 2004). Go n-eiri an t-adh leat.

Sunday, October 05, 2014

After 20,000 – 25,000 days
I am sitting in a pub in Dublin
when the Squeaker walks in, grins enormously,
then seats himself beside me.
I’d buy you a pint, says I,
if I had the money. Feck that, says he,
ye won’t be leaving here sober!

And of new light then was a crack,
with the young men struggling at the door,
the old men holding it back.

After Chamberlain’s Munich fiasco(J’aime Berlin hissed the colluding French)young Jimmy upped stakes, headed for the UKwhere the idiot joined the RAF,explaining, in his irritating, slow and reasonable way,that Ireland didn’t possess an air force,and should Britain fall we’d be next.Nobody at the time believed him.

Ah, the lemons of Lebanon,
the drowned bodies of Cyprus:where are the jewels that were his eyes?

With friends, I joined the army in 1914
at the behest of Sir John Redmond,
who told us the defence of Belgium
would lead to the freedom of Ireland.

I remember the boat to Boulogne
with sick all over the decks,
and the sergeant-major laughing,
handing around pints.

The shells came falling over the Front,
puffed and puling, rising up in layers,
and in that early and insane six months, a year,
all loyal soldiers were promised exemption, a redemption,
with death the only answer to our thoughts and prayers.

Fuck the British Army, thought the Irish lads,
(employing the language of the time),
What the hell have we got ourselves into?

My younger brother was shot in 1916
in Dublin, while I was still in France,
and on July 1st came the Somme
and so I heaved myself up and walked over,
with 70-80 lbs. of ridiculous equipment
and I thought, now, now, ye fuckin Huns,
just finish me off. They finished off 20,000 of us
on that first day alone, but they missed me.

I’ll never, I think, forgive them for that, because I had to
go back to Dublin and face my parents,
absorb the cold looks of school and childhood friends
in my stained and dusty khaki uniform,
the uniform of the alien, the enemy of Ireland.

The war ended.
They all end and then the next one begins.
I found myself doing bits for Ireland
under a man called Michael Collins.
To hell, so, with little Belgium.

The Depression next came down upon us
unfolding like a load of smothering blankets,
made worse by an incompetent government.
I had a job by then with the gas company
who were paying me less and less,
when I met young Eileen O’Connor,
and she put the lift back into my walk
and the original twinkle back in my eye.
Ah, it was grand and glorious!
I’d never been the same since the goddam feckin war
but now I was coming back to life.

Young Jimmy shot down three German bombersand so they gave him one of the medalsthey occasionally sling over to the Irish: NINA wasone of the signs of the times – No Irish Need Apply -all over jobs and rooming houses, but not the RAF.In time Jimmy got quite good, causing havoc among the enemy,and so he got the real medals and a promotion.He also found a shy but lovely English girlfriend.

My Daddy was doing poorly, and since I was the eldest,
I was told to ake care of Aunt Gertrude, his elder sister.
Gertude had been a political disaster since 1893,
joining Hyde’s Gaelic League and then Sinn Fein,
so now I was faced with a bing- bang –bong
of threat and apparition, then the rapid
appearance of private and public disaster.

Even in Dublin, this was simply not on.
Not just then, but even today.
I thought of strangling her in her bed,
but she died before plans were complete.
Still, I could tell you stories …

She was a friend of Maud Gonne,
and of that interesting feminist vegetarian bloke,
Francis Sheehy-Skeffington,
who got shot by Bowen-Coulter in 1916,
later adjuged insane
(the shooter not the shootee)
and she was an outspoken bosom companion
of all the peculiar people of the period,

but I perceive I lack the time,
and I know I lack the money:
since I am lately bereft of wife and family,
even any form of human sympathy,
I shall regress to the underground tunnels
of aggressive feral youth.

Eileen and the kids had died in a fire:
only Jimmy, the eldest, survived.

All history grows silent, literature dumb, science crippled,
all thought and speculation comes to a standstill.

You live on, so you do,
nobody knows where the years go.

On a silent autumn day,high above the Channel and the fields of Kent,a random single round hits home,and from the heights comes a plume of smokeand the sudden rush of a falling plane,no parachute, only a descending spiral,homing, inevitably, towards the sea,and then comes a great splashand a sudden white plume of waves.O Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy.

Saturday, November 02, 2013

Nothing is over, not a thing,until time actually ceases.And as you stand below, waiting down in the streetlooking up, open-mouthed,wondering, speculating,nothing at all happens.nothing for 20, 30, 40 seconds,

and when such silent moments existin this flickering worldthere will be no further kisses, grunts, or gunshots.And soturn away, young Damian,turn aside from life and love

for love is a heavy thing to carrywith its sagging burden of lust,its well-fed writhing bodies,its financial speculations.Many unheard voices, crying out.mouth the hope, I hope I hopenever to do/see this again

and since the world is roundthose fat Chinese make it heavyliving, as they do on the edge,sucking up noodleas, failing to emigrate,and so they drag us down, the bastards,causing climate change.

I write letters to world leadersabout this, about other serious things,and they respond, ever sobrittle but quite polite, advising meto fuck off and go away. In Newcastlethe girls are the real problem on weekendsbut not as bad as in Dublin. There you needstrong arms & unfailing waves of charmto herd the howling hags homeward.

Friday, August 30, 2013

We were snoozing happily in our hammockswhen, with a surfeit of roaring soaring sound,the invasion arrived around teatimeand from waters, rushing in a writhing ring,a feeble hand arose from the wavesabsent Excalibur.

The smothered fish lay along the shore,and the mountains sank into the sea.

This is not good, I remember thinking,as I raced to the palace of the Queen,the heady heave and clash of arms behind me,but her bloated face was a bawdy greenand a cloud of flies were buzzing around:‘ I perceive, milady, the realm is sinking’.

Saturday, August 10, 2013

In a mist-filled snow cast in grey shadows sat an old green bench with flaking paint; it had a beady-eyed crow at its end who crossly flew away when we approached.

I don’t really know, you said, what I’ll do; and I said, I know, darling, but I’m sure it will be all right. And then I brushed the snowflakes away from your eyes and kissed you.

That was in Istanbulwhere old green steamers went lurching across the Hornsoftly, silently puffing …. I have grown old and resent each bedridden day spent thinking; I particularly despise the night, each sleepless night and deep where ancient memories softly creep.

I’ll be going down to New York town to meet my love, my sweet young man, who has worked so hard to make our home away across the broad Atlantic. I must take a step away from friends, from relations, from my weeping mother, who will never see me again. My father spits silently in the fire and I know how he feels.

I am sorry (I am not sorry) for I wish to get away and live a life away from Ireland, for Ireland beautiful and grand as it is, truly, crushes the hearts of its downtrodden women. And I am not and never will be a downtrodden woman. I read books, some of which I understand, and some of which I don’t, but never mind, I am a proud and nervous nationalist.

Ireland looms out of the darkness. It sits there, balefully, in the wide Atlantic Sea. Aviators say, thanks, Christ God, land at last, a place we can crash or land upon. As did Alcock and Brown in Clifden in 1919 long before Lucky Lindbergh. It’s there. Land at last, the farmhouses and the fields, waiting to welcome or kill you.

Tuesday, July 09, 2013

Clear and cold is this autumn night with parasol trees in the courtyard.
Alone in this river town, I watch the flame of a guttering candle.
From the dark outside comes the plaintive note of a bugle,
and though the moon is in mid-heaven, is there no-one to share with me?
My messengers are scattered amid clouds of rain and sand
and the city gates are closed to the traveller: high mountains are walls in my way.
I, who have borne the last ten years of pitiable existence,
find here a perch, a little branch, I feel safe for the night.

(a non-precise rather cavalier translation which needs an extra line co contain the limpid Chinese, but the essence is there.)

Friday, November 23, 2012

AMIT: What truth is that exactly? What I see is the face of a
person who doesn't know what he is talking about. Do you really think that
Israel is in it for the purpose of killing Palestinians? If that was the case
there would have been thousands dead. Israel is going out of its way NOT to
kill innocents! Sadly, it is not always possible, especially when the enemy is
"bravely" hiding behind civilians. The who shoot indiscriminately
into civilian population are Hamas. The only reason there aren't many, many more
casualties on our side is that their weapons are crap and our defense system
are better and for that, we don't need to apologize. If Hamas had the ability,
every one of their missiles would have hit a school. So please, Facts first,
then talk!

BRENDAN: Everyone has a right to live in peace and dignity. After
Shoah many countries supported the creation of the State of Israel. Israeli
treatment of the Palestinians who lived on the same land before them has been
very brutal. This is the main problem. The right of the State of Israel to
exist is accepted but within what borders - 1948 or 1967? You say you cannot
make a settlement with the Palestinians because they are terrorists. Israeli
settlements and military occupation have created these "terrorists" just
as British stupidity in Northern Ireland created the IRA. In fact, you had to
fight against the British yourselves with Haganah and Irgun in the post-WWII
period when they still maintained the Palestinian Mandate. Now you are taking
on the attitudes and policies of your former occupiers with regard to the
Palestinians because you are the people with the real power, and, among other
things, "their weapons are crap". This is not a military war, in the
final analysis, it is a political conflict. So far America supports you no
matter what you do. This will not last forever. Your support in Western Europe
is already fading. You cannot simply lash out at people who don't support you
and label them "anti-Semitic". The war in Europe and the Holocaust
has been over for 77 years. People around the world tend to judge your
government by its present actions. In spite of these sharp differences of
opinion, I hope we can remain friends in the more-or-less "neutral"
surroundings of Hamamatsu!

AMIT: Brendan, on the point that Israel and the Palestinians
should exist as 2 states side by side I couldn't agree more. But whose fault is
it that it's not the case? What happened in 48 a day after the UN declared the
Jewish and Palestinian states? A DAY AFTER! 1 DAY! That's what it took the Arab
world to decide that Israel doesn't have the right to exist and to attack the
day old country. Hamas shares that point of view to this day. How do you
negotiate with someone who does not recognize your right to exist? Answer me
that because I really want to know. The fact that Israel should have withdrawn
from all the conquered land after 67 (another win or die war) will not be
argued by me. But why did the Arab world, who is so "concerned" with
the well being of their Palestinian "brothers", (namely Egypt) did
not demand to get the Gaza strip back in 79? They demanded, and got every last
inch of Sinai. Why did Jordan didn't demand the West Bank in 95? I'll tell why.
Because the Palestinians are a thorn in Israels ass and the Arabs like them to
stay that way. Why Does the Arab world, namely Iran, instead of sending
doctors, civil engineers, building schools and infrastructure, why instead of
that do they send weapons and weapon expert? See the reason above. You are
talking about 67 borders. Why after the war of 48 didn't Jordan and Egypt
establish a Palestinian state and instead kept those areas as their own? You
are talking about the people who lived there before us. How far back do you
want to look? Jewish people lived in that land and were kicked out. There was
never in all of history a Palestinian state except for 1 day after the
deceleration in 48 and that state died as a sad side effect to the failed
attempt to destroy Israel. It's very easy to blame "big, bad" Israel
in all the shit that is going on (and you will never hear me say that Israel is
totally blameless) but again, I suggest knowing the facts, all the facts not
only those that fit you worldview, before doing that.

AMIT: By the way, you craftily managed to dodge my more urgent
concern that if Hamas could, each and every one of their missiles would have
hit a school. Or perhaps you disagree on that too?

BRENDAN: I am not going to get further involved in this
discussion, Amit, not because I don't stand by the opinions previously stated,
but owing to the fact that this is an endless argumentative swamp with heated
emotions going back and forth for the last half-century and more. This is one
of the so-called "intractable" problems, with the Indo-Pakistani conflict over
Kashmir running a close second. The Northern Ireland business was up there as
well for about thirty years but wonder of wonders (!) we managed to hammer out
an Agreement in 1998 which left the area under UK sovereignty for the
forseeable future but brought Nationalists into a power-sharing political
settlement in NI for the first time since the partition of the island in 1922.
If we can hammer out our differences, which actually go back far longer to the
early 1600s when the Crown repopulated confiscated lands with Protestant
settlers brought over from the British mainland (maybe that sounds a little
familiar), then there is some hope that Israelis and Palestinians might one day
do the same.

AMIT: I know you too well, Brendan, to know that you won't change
you mind and I too, have no intention to get any further into it. I was
actually debating long and hard before I wrote my first reply but decided it's
important to give my point of view because there are too many people out there
who like you (at least judging by your words), think that Israel is 100% in the
wrong while the Palestinians are 100% in the right. In my experience people who
see the world in black and white are, in most cases, wrong. That's actually
what bothers me the most Brendan, that I never once heard you indicate that you
feel any other way. That's the reason I kind of insisted on getting an answer
to my question about Hamas' intentions. But I guess answering it will force you
to admit that maybe, just maybe, the Palestinians are not always the "good
guy" in this ongoing tragedy. About the possibility of ever seeing this
conflict resolved. I remember clearly when I read the newspaper about Rabin and
Arafat's meeting (ironically I was a soldier in the West Bank at the time..).
I'm not exaggerating when I'm saying that I was shivering with excitement at
the thought that this senseless war (is there any other kind) is finally about
to be over. I was actually imagining myself getting in a car, driving up north
through Lebanon, Syria, and into Europe. 20 years later I'm much less of an
optimist and much more of a realist and I do not believe that I will see peace
in my lifetime. And that's all I'm going to say.

----------------------------------------------------

POSTSCRIPT: Dear Amit – I believe the Palestinian people are the
victims in the ongoing situation but I do NOT think they are 100% correct. In
fact, they have been pawns of a corrupt local political leadership – Arafat and
the PLO for many years – not to mention the manipulation of their condition by
other Arab states and Iran as a way of striking at Israel. The situation is
extremely complicated and it is certainly not black-and-white. Hamas can be
seen as a reaction against the PLO and these two groups hate each other
intensely. In any case Hamas won the last election in Gaza and they were duly
punished for it by both the USA and the EU through withdrawal of aid funds:
they were not supposed to win. As I said in my first post the problem needs a
political, not a military, solution. The best chance came at Camp David in 2000
when Barak met Arafat and the Clinton government were trying hard to reach a
settlement. Clinton was also very active in the Northern Ireland settlement
which was also very difficult but managed to reach a compromise agreement. By
and large, this agreement continues to work in spite of occasional violence by
hardline idiots such as the Real IRA (the Omagh bombing) and ongoing distrust
between Protestants and Catholics. After all, the problem goes back 400 years,
but all sides finally came to the conclusion that violence was not the answer.
The two situations are historically quite different, I know, but the need for a
political settlement is the parallel that draws them together. In order for
that to happen both sides need a credible political leadership with
overwhelming support from its electorate and a bit of help from the outside,
preferably the USA. This happened to come about in 1997-1998 after Tony Blair
replaced John Major as the British prime minister, after Sinn Féin under Gerry
Adams and Martin McGuinness had convinced the membership of the IRA to accept
their political lead, and both sides had their leadership confirmed by very
strong electoral support. And of course Clinton was there and ready to help.
Unfortunately this combination didn’t work two years later at Camp David.
Barak, like Rabin before him, was entirely credible to the Israeli electorate,
not least because of his military record. Arafat, fearful of his own position,
was the one who faltered. Then, of course, we had Ariel Sharon and his provocative march to
the Temple Mount and the Second Intifada. Now we have Netanyahu, and I’m not
even sure who we have on the Palestinian side. Bush simply didn’t want to get
involved and Obama has a load of other problems on his mind. So I agree with
you … it doesn’t look good. Nevertheless, the only possible settlement will be
political when the factors I have outlined above (hopefully) come together
again.

I had no info on Hamas declaring they intended to hit schools with
their rockets, and doubt they could have done so anyway. This was the only
point in our public exchange when the tone became a little personal … “craftily
…”?

Our public
exchange of views is officially over, by mutual agreement, and I want you to
know that I do not hold a completely black-and-white view of the situation. Hope
to see you soon and exchange a couple of beers!

Thursday, November 08, 2012

Snow in the wind, my thoughts
slide over to the Winter Queen, so easily
brought to mind in this unbombed
Central European city: War, having
taken its pound of flesh from the people
spared its buildings.

The Munich betrayal. Heydrich.
No wonder they feel the way they do.
Chamberlain. J’aime Berlin.

I visited you before and after.
In the summer of 1989, the border
was a nest of guns and barbed wire
with apologetic young recruits
going through your bags. In 1991,
when I came again with my family,
all of that stuff had gone.

The river, the Charles Bridge, the palace,
all of that stuff was still there.

The West betrayed you, England and France,
and condemned you to a half-century
of misery: fascists followed by communists,
and if I were Czech, I’d be angry.

Surprisingly, you are not angry. Rueful,
I think is the tone. You sure as hell
got rid of the Sudeten Germans, every
last single one of the Nazi bastards,
which in its way is a pity, when you think

Of Kafka, for example, no Sudeten farmer,
just a person who thought and wrote in German,
and most of that has been lost. Also Slovakia,
who were not much help to you during the war.
Pity the countries with no seas as shelter!

Land borders in Europe pay no attention
to the people who happen to live within them
and never really have. The Versailles Conference,
post-Great War, was supposed to change all that
and didn’t. They simply carved up Europe
and set the seeds for the next great war.

And they carved up the Arab world as well,
drawing straight lines with rulers on maps,
setting up "mandates" for France and Britain,
promising everything to everyone, including,
of course, the Jews. Which is why, Ladies & Gentleman,
we get 9/11, the problems that continue today.

No, I haven’t forgotten about Prague. The food
improves (MacDonald’s was a step up, if you can imagine!)
and the beer has always been good. It is a quaint
and lovely city with its old clock towers and cobblestones,
with its trace of the nostalgic Old World “Mitteleuropa”,
which hasn’t been seen since the 1930s. America

has a great deal going for it, or had at one stage,
but it will never never replace, with its Disney dreams,
the real and honest thing.

I was a small Irish kid in Germany in 1958 (my Dad worked in the AFEX system as an accountant) when Elvis came over as an army draftee. A family friend got his autograph for me which I lost soon after (damn & double-damn!) and this is the point where this book - the first of a two-part biography - closes. The first part of this biography takes us back from the arrival in Germany to Elvis' birth in Tupelo, to his family's move to Memphis, his geeky high school days, the $12 guitar his father bought for him, and his burning desire to cut a record. This brought him to Sam Phillips and Sun Records. This early recording took off thanks to radio play throughout the South and a series of live gigs followed, getting ever bigger and bigger. Soon things became so big they nearly got out of control. From some peculiar mixture of gospel, hillbilly, and Negro blues Elvis had hit on a new sound that caught the imagination of teenage America. By the age of 21 (1956) he was pulling in huge audiences and the music moguls were taking an interest. The predatory ex-Carnie barker "Colonel" Tom Parker moved in to guide this boy along and in his manipulatory and conniving ways made Elvis a national phenomenon.

What makes this story so fascinating is the way it is told. The author, an early fan of the music, spent 11 years tracking down all the surviving friends and associates of Elvis and tells the story as if he were looking through a keyhole, recording conversations and first impressions and opinions from such a wide number of people that you begin to feel you are there yourself. The way this book was put together is extremely impressive: by no means is it your "standard" biography. Whether you like the music or not (I did even then, I still do!) you cannot help but get caught up in the story. After such a meteoric rise you just know that a fall is bound to come: hubris, as we know from the wise old Greeks, is followed by nemesis.

A second volume of the biography entitled "Careless Love" charts the course of Elvis' career from the time he was released from the army to his early death at the age of 42. That will require another review.

Thursday, October 04, 2012

We don't hate the Brits, Ben. We used to, that's true, but we don't any more. They seem to get along pretty well with us,
too, much better than, say, with the modern-day Scots! The divorce -
politically speaking - has been decisive and complete, apart from the
dispute over the kids in Norn Iron and even that has been levelled down
thanks to the IRA campaign, although nobody will admit that was the real reason.
Terrorists!! Local boys (and girls) if you want to know the truth. The
Queen could finally come over after a hundred years, and she was very
welcome. On the personal level the old antagonisms just don't exist any
more. We still have the old songs, of course. They're great old songs,
so no reason to throw them out! And we still have the Gaelic tradition -
the poetry and sagas and what one might describe as our 'national' character - going back to the early centuries, both BC and AD. This will never never die out and our very strong sense of place and all the multiple layers of our long and colourful history can still inspire the rising
generations ... and people like me!

We have the national or more precisely, tribal, failing of falling in love with Ireland, the landscape, the people, the whole surrounding atmosphere, and although this is touching, I suppose, it is more than a little weird! Nobody who leaves Ireland can ever stop talking about it.

The most important thing is that
we are a free country again, the only sensible and natural way in which the Irish can exist
and openly deal with the world, and we are a relatively 'elderly' free country at that,
in the sense that younger generations have no interest in how we broke the chains of oppression and simply take their freedom for granted. Overall, I think this
is a good thing. Our people grow up this way and they think it is a human right
and they can't understand why other countries don't have the same
privileges. So a lot of our nurses and activists go over to Palestine to
get shot at by Israelis .... because the Palestinians are the same as
the Irish, man, 150-200 years ago!